14 DAY TRIAL // On Thursday, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta urged the Congress to take immediate action on the Defense Department’s budget, but also to rush the adoption of cybersecurity legislation.
“[Congress] really must pass a Cybersecurity bill -- Cybersecurity legislation. As I made clear this month, we really do need strong Cybersecurity legislation to ensure that we can help defend the nation against a cyber attack,” Panetta said during a press conference.
The reporters present at the conference asked Panetta if there’s any evidence that Iran is behind the cyberattack on oil giant Saudi Aramco, but the secretary declined to provide any details, claiming that it’s classified information.
However, he did highlight the fact that the tool utilized in the attack was “pretty sophisticated.”
“There are only a few countries in the world that have that capability. But it -- it raises tremendous concerns about the potential for the use of that kind of tool when it comes to our power grid, when it comes to our financial systems, when it comes to our government systems, and that was the concern that I was raising,” Panetta explained.